Sephiroth's ghostly corporeal form stood questioningly next to that of his former second in command's, both men staring down at the sleeping human sprawled out before them. Zack gave a sigh, not needing the breath, but the motion being something he did anyhow, to remind himself that he too was once among the living.
"So this is Vincent Valentine?" There was a pause. "You sure you two aren't related somehow?"
Sephiroth frowned.
"Why? Do you really think we look alike?" His voice was hollow, as if his train of thought was somewhere else, lost in a bank of white mist.
"Well, you both do look pretty girly in the face," the violet eyed wraith chuckled briefly, "and besides, look at him, he sleeps the same way you used to in the barracks, all sprawled out without a care of getting raped in the world. You could make even a king sized mattress look small." There was an extremely affectionate tone embedded in his words. He reached an arm out and placed it around his taller companion's waist lovingly. "What's wrong?"
Sephiroth shrugged, something of a habit he had picked up after reuniting with the other swordsman in the lifestream.
"Nothing. And I'm positive that he's not my father."
There was a moment of silence, Zack lying his head on Seph's wide, leather covered shoulder as he stared some more at the half-naked ex-Turk sleeping and alive. Sephiroth, it seemed was enveloped in the steady rise and fall of the man's bare chest, scarred from battles long since fought. His pale green eyes fell upon a shiny circular patch of skin where a bullet had once struck him. It had struck him because of his mother, the woman who caused all the man's suffering and pain. He hated that woman.
"You liked him didn't you Seph?" Zack's words were quiet, but the love in his eyes never faltered. He let go of man's waist and sat down on the bed, his body not making any noise on the mattress itself, his body weightless and almost intangible. Sephiroth still stood as he was, watching the rise and fall of the shiny round scar.
"After you were gone, I had no idea what to do. I had no one." He whispered, as if ashamed. "What little human there was left of me after I had killed you just wanted someone there with me." A small sad smile formed halfway on his sculpted lips. "Sometimes I wonder what he really thinks of me after all that has happened. I wasn't myself back then."
Zack smiled at this sentiment and patted the empty space beside him for Sephiroth to seat himself one the bed.
"We could see love, maybe he's dreaming about you." His words were sincere and it only saddened the former general even further. Zack loved the one creature he had every right to hate, his murderer. Zack stared at the general so lost in thought, and rose up from the bed to take the man's hand.
"Come on, this should be good, he was reading a smut novel before he fell asleep." The younger man laughed softly as he led him to the bedside where he crawled over the gunman's body to lie on one side of him as Seph lay on the other side. Together they closed their eyes and laid a hand on the warm, living body.

Vincent was dreaming. He was dreaming of his childhood, running free in the forest of some unknown area. He was excited, his young youthful heart beating joyfully as he weaved in and out of the thick corpses of pines and ancient oaks. His father was coming home soon, and he had a special present for his youngest son. Birds around him in the trees sung of his joy in a melodious chorus.
He suddenly came to a quick stop at the edge of a small clearing and held his breath, the light of innocent rapture draining from his face. Ahead of him, in the tall grass and wild green curling ferns, a small pack of wolves devoured their recent kill. He stared at them, their bodies emaciated and longer than normal. Yellow bloodstained feathers flew everywhere was they ravaged the slowly cooling corpse. Fear started to ebb away at the boy's body and then suddenly, one of the angular maws of the rabid looking creatures rose from the dead bird and sniffed the air daintily. The wind had changed and there was a new scent. The scent of fear and soft flesh. It gave a short yipe and the rest of the pack, some seven other animals, all stopped to sniff as well. Vincent's heart almost froze mid beat as nine pairs of glowing red eyes stared ever hungrily at him, one to two of the deathly looking creatures licking their bloody chops in anticipation.
He ran. And the pack started after. He ran as fast as his eleven year old legs could take him, and it wasn't quite fast enough. As a last minute attempt of escaping them, young Vincent threw himself up the trunk of a gnarled oak tree and scrambled up its limbs for dear life, tears falling down his cheeks the entire time. The strange wolves pooled around the base of the tree and eyed him lustily for several minutes before moving on. Slowly, after he was sure they were gone, did he climb down the coarse trunk. When he reached the bottom, he let out a soft sigh and held back his frightened tears.
Suddenly out of nowhere, the wolves sprang forth and his world was of blood and feathers.

Quickly, the dream faded away into another one, Vincent this time, being much older. Zack and Sephiroth clung silently to its edges, waiting to see what this new train of subconscious thought would bring; only slightly disturbed by the outcome of the first dream.

Vincent walked through the door to the small apartment and threw his navy blue jacket over the single kitchen chair. Tossing the mail on the cluttered counter, he proceeded to pull off his white work shirt as he made his way around the mess of half packed boxes to the bathroom.

Hmph, he looks pretty good with short hair. Zack whispered. Sephiroth didn't say a word. Zack smiled for a moment, an interesting idea popping into mind.
Seph, why don't we make ourselves known? It could be fun.

Vincent sighed as hot water showered over him, his short bangs plastering themselves to his forehead. He reached for the bar of soap to his left, the hand that grabbed it one of flesh and bone instead of metal and gears. Someone stepped into the shower behind him; long strong fingers reaching up to gently massage his aching shoulders. His breath caught sharply and the soap slipped from his hand, falling to the bottom of the tub by the drain in a whirl of thin suds.
"Vincent," The being whispered seductively, "hasn't anyone told you it's not good to drop the soap in the company of another man?" Vincent's eyelids fluttered shut for a moment before he turned about, an unbridaled smile gracing his face and his arms automatically reaching to embrace the familiar figure behind him.
"Sephiroth." The warmth in his deep umber voice was like golden sunshine beating down upon the general as he heard Vincent address his dream form. He seemed a bit taller and considerably older than the real thing. It was how Vincent precieved him in his dreams.
"Well Vincent, are you going to get the soap?" The chuckle in his voice was warm and aroused.

Zack and Sephiroth watched this, both rather surprised at the unforeseen turn of events. Zack had only been joking when he had said Vincent had been reading smut before bedtime, but just from the way things were going, he had to say that Vincent had been reading some really strange stuff.

Vincent smiled, looking up playfully into his lover's green eyes. A small impish grin appeared on his lips. He released his grip of the other man's torso.
"You want to make me?" he said softly, looking up through his eyelashes. He watched as his lover sneered triumphantly, his long silver bangs coming to fall in front of his face like heavy wet pasta noodles.
"That sounds promising." There was a brief pause before Vincent lept quickly out of the shower, his bare feet sliding on the kitchen floor as he ran, dripping, through the apartment with the dream Sephiroth casually persuing behind him. He quickly stopped in front of the broom closet on the way to his room and slid behind the door, adrenaline pumping through his body as he tried to steady his breathing.
In the darkness of the closet, he heard his lover's footsteps come towards his hiding spot and then draw back. He would wait a little longer until he came out. He probably went to go turn off the shower which was still running in the background.
The sound of a lamp crashing brought him out of his alcove and had him rushing madly into the small living room. There, seven wolves, strange and emaciated, were hovering over a still figure. Fear hit Vincent like a tidal wave and anger rose like bile in his throat as one of the wolves began tearing at his lover's limp arm, dark blood dripping from its yellow teeth. He let out a scream of rage and threw himself at the wolves, almost tripping on the body of one that had been killed during Sephiroth's fight. They skittered back, only staring at him with wary bloodshot eyes. His mind screamed as he clung to his lover's unmoving body, its form littered with oozing wounds, the blood seeming to turn a pussey yellow as it touched his skin.
Why had he only heard the lamp smash and nothing else? Why hadn't he heard his lover scream?

Sephiroth choked back a tear and stared at the dream Vincent. His voice was low and cold.
....Because I never screamed. Not when your bullets tore through my leg and side and not when Cloud brought up his sword to finish me... I was silent the entire time....

Vincent awoke very suddenly, his pale skin soaked in a cold sweat. He sat up, fear and sadness gripping at his gut in a tangled mass of emotion. He didn't, couldn't, see the two ghosts lying beside him so rigidly. He let his mechanical hand drag through his matted black hair and gritted his teeth hard. His muscles tightened and slowly he began to sob, his red eyes shut tight. Sephiroth and Zack, on either side of him, could only look on in silence, both feeling his pain in form of different emotions as it radiated off of him like hypnotic radio waves.
"What did I tell you Seph?" Zack whispered quietly, more subdued than before. "He did feel for you." He cast a look at the sobbing gunman, and placed a hand on his shoulder. Sephiroth said nothing, staring at the elemental hand on Vincent's shoulder. Zack frowned.
"Look, he obviously cared and still cares for you. I don't know what the hell the first dream was about, but the last one was damn obvious Seph. It doesn't take a fucking shrink to understand that he liked you and blames himself and his friends for you being dead." Zack went on, but Sephiroth had stopped listening, never had been to begin with actually. He was staring at Vincent, the man whom had loved and lost so much for his mother and for some godforsaken reason, had and still loved him. He was still crying although the shoulder racking sobs had stopped. Seph wished so hard that he could read the man's thoughts, meanwhile wishing he could understand his own.
He didn't notice when Zack had stopped talking and Vincent began to turn about, so lost in his own sadness and self confusion was he.
He didn't notice Vincent pull Cerberus out from under his pillows.
He didn't notice the frantic look Zack wore as the gunman silently contemplated.
Then he noticed.
The click of the gun as the bullet was loaded into the chamber.
He noticed the ragged look on Valentine's face.
He noticed that he could do nothing as his once lover placed the barrel to his temple.
For once in his life, he'd screamed, only to have it fall on unhearing ears. Zack held him back, using all his strength to do so.
Cloud came rushing in the room, his boxers off kilter and gold hair a mess, to see what the noise had been about. In front of him, unseen by the sleepy swordsman, Vincent stared at his own lifeless body, ignoring the quickly waking blonde and the two phantoms in the corner to his left. Cloud took off down the hall, screaming for anybody who had a phoenix down. Zack stepped foreword out of the shadows to stand next to Vincent, his hand trembling as he reached out to place his palm on the man's shoulder blade.
"You didn't have to do it Vincent."
At the sound of Zack's voice, Sephiroth, who had once again entered his own selfish mind, growled softly from the corner where he had fallen to his knees. A figure walked up to him in the shadows.
"Sephiroth."
Sephiroth's head jerked up and before him stood his beautiful Vincent, his long hair gone and his body as it had been before his conflict with Hojo. His face wore a faint smile and he reached down to embrace Sephiroth tightly like a little kid.
"No more wolves love," he whispered into the man's silver locks. "No more wolves."
-End!